If only....

How will my life be “if only…” I wonder? How others would feel or react “if only…” I wonder? Will people start liking or hating me “if only…” I wonder? Believe me it’s never ending. That phrase “if only…” hangs at the end of all our doings and thinking.

Nothing novel or path breaking about these thoughts but still they intrigue me to the extent of making me restless. I am sure for 90% of the decisions we make, we start regretting it the very next minute. (Some day research may prove it or maybe it’s already proven...I am not sure) Any way mind functions like a super highway with thoughts zooming at the speed of 180 km/second beginning with “if only…” It drives me nuts at times. After all the education and trainings received from childhood, mind still proves to be more a consistent persistently nagging master than an obedient servant to me. Meditation is touted as being ‘the’ solution to all this mental frenzy but then what is the % of people who are actually able to achieve it? Practice is the key, I know and I practice. Sometimes if I am extremely lucky I have these few seconds of complete mindlessness but then again the traffic rush time begins. I need to practice more.

Moreover, it feels extremely strange that we are able to comprehend or understand so little of our body part which controls our complete existence. The way we talk, laugh, cry, react, emote, run, sit etc. is all controlled by this few grams of “mass”. It is a humbling experience at times and challenging during others. Creativity says let it loose. Common sense says control it. Practical sense says forget it. So which sense to follow? If only we had one single correct answer to all these predicaments. Any scientific or spiritual or emotional community will never have one correct answer to a question. It’s always “while on the one hand you could……, on the other hand you could…..” and then when we fail in the examination of life, we get to hear “if only….”     

I feel that this poem by Rudyard Kipling, to a great extent, has been able to throw some light on how one can at least look at designing one’s own life plan. It surely inspires me. 

As the philosophers and great thinkers have said there is no right or wrong answer to life questions. Each day is a new day with new dreams to live and create. Mind will still work at its crazy speed but we could still find our few seconds of happy mindlessness, if only we practice. 

IF

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-          Rudyard Kipling

Ma